Rubio Says US Ready to Use Force to Ensure Venezuela’s Cooperation

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(Bloomberg) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration is prepared to use force to ensure that Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez cooperates to the greatest extent possible with the US, while hoping that self-interest will motivate her to advance key American objectives.

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Rodríguez has committed to opening Venezuela’s energy sector to US companies, provide preferential access to production and use money from oil sales to buy American goods, Rubio said in remarks prepared for delivery at a hearing with lawmakers on Wednesday. 

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The hearing is Rubio’s first public appearance before Congress since the intricate US raid on Caracas that led to the capture of her predecessor, Nicolás Maduro, on Jan. 3.

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Maduro had been indicted by the US Justice Department on charges that included narco-terrorism, and Rubio praised the operation as a law enforcement effort accomplished without the loss of a single life among American forces. Maduro, now in a New York jail, has pleaded not guilty.

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Democrats have criticized the raid as an illegal act of war that circumvented Congress and now risks entangling the US in an extended commitment to rebuild Venezuela.

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“We are prepared to use force to ensure maximum cooperation if other methods fail,” Rubio said in the statement for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “It is our hope that this will not prove necessary, but we will never shy away from our duty to the American people and our mission in this Hemisphere.”

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The US in the second half of last year assembled the largest deployment of forces in waters around Latin America in decades and has blown up boats allegedly tied to drug cartels. But since mid- December, President Donald Trump has pivoted attention to Venezuela’s oil industry, accusing the socialist government of stealing US assets and touting a post-Maduro agreement to send as much as 50 million barrels of oil to the US to be sold for the benefit of both nations.

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The US has also interdicted at least seven tankers used to export Venezuelan oil, continuing to crack down on a global shadow fleet used to ship sanctioned petroleum.

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Rodríguez said earlier this week that Venezuela had “had enough” of US interference as the government faces growing discontent from public-sector groups and leftist parties over plans to overhaul the oil industry.

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Earlier: Rodríguez Says Venezuela Has ‘Had Enough’ of US Meddling 

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The military buildup and attacks in the waters around Venezuela last year came despite most narcotics deaths resulting from fentanyl, and Drug Enforcement Administration data showing that drug is widely produced in Mexico, not Venezuela, which is a trafficking route for cocaine. 

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While the Trump administration highlights the links between the trafficking of both drugs, that disconnect led Democratic lawmakers to accuse the Trump administration of lying about its goals in the region, saying the campaign was about oil all along.

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